Several industries employ relatively massive refractory structures formed of refractory bricks of varying sizes and shapes. For example, coke ovens and glass furnaces, including regenerators associated with such furnaces, traditionally comprise massive refractory brick structures having relatively large-scale parallel walls, crown arches and floor arches (typically termed rider arches in art parlance) constructed from a large variety of differently shaped individual refractory bricks. The construction and repair of such refractory structures can be extremely tedious and time consuming due to the individual refractory brick construction thereby resulting in costly downtime and a concomitant economic loss.
Recently, it has been proposed to provide relatively monolithic refractory components to reduce the number of individual bricks forming the refractory structures and thereby reduce the downtime required to construct and/or repair the refractory structure. See in this regard, U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,640,635, 8,266,853 and 6,066,236 and copending U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/111,390 filed Feb. 3, 2015, the entire contents of each such patent and pending patent application being expressly incorporated hereinto by reference.
While these prior proposals are satisfactory, continual improvement in the construction and repair/servicing of relatively massive refractory structures (e.g., coke ovens, glass furnaces, forehearths, regenerators and the like) is sought. For example, it would be desirable if integral self-supporting refractory modules could be formed from multiple refractory blocks so that the individual refractory modules could be formed remotely and then transported to the point of use for installation where they could be interlocked together to form the refractory wall structure. This off-site fabrication of the refractory module could in turn produce extensive labor cost savings since individual wall blocks would not need to be assembled on site. It is towards providing such improvement that the embodiments of the invention described herein are directed.